


Almost Out of Reach

by midnight_vision



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin Needs a Hug, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Gen, Obi-Wan can be such an asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 21:54:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10953465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnight_vision/pseuds/midnight_vision
Summary: Anakin is convinced that Obi-Wan doesn’t care about him, and of course an extreme event has to take place for Obi-Wan to admit to him just how attached he is.





	Almost Out of Reach

“Anakin.”

He jerked his head up. Had he fallen asleep? Judging by Obi-Wan’s irritation, Anakin assumed he had, and he was probably late for something. “Right. Coming.”

Anakin put his datapad aside and stood up from the bed while trying not to wince at how stiff his neck was. As he followed Obi-Wan through the corridors, he realized they were going to the meeting room, so it must have been time to discuss strategy. Anakin used to enjoy strategy meetings, but they never felt the same after Ahsoka left. Even though he tried not to miss her too much, since that “wasn’t the Jedi way,” a tiny jolt of pain always made itself known whenever her absence became obvious.

He couldn’t remember what Mid Rim planet they were heading to, but it wasn’t like it really mattered. All of their missions were starting to bleed together, and after three years of fighting, Anakin was finding himself thinking more often that they’d never win. It was always the same. The Republic would appear to be close to victory, but then the Separatists would hit them hard. The war would go on for decades until there was no one left to die.

Although both him and Obi-Wan had been working on very little sleep for the past few months, it seemed to only be catching up to Anakin. He wished the Council hadn’t cut their leave short since one day was a tease, and his body and mind were begging for proper rest. His ability to focus was nowhere near what it should be to go into battle. What if troopers got killed because of him? Anakin should remove himself, but that would leave Obi-Wan on his own. He wasn’t sure what the right course of action was, and the more he thought about it, the more annoyed he got. He knew he was projecting that annoyance into the Force from the way Obi-Wan kept glancing at him with a small frown. Being so exhausted, it was too difficult to control his emotions. Anakin tried his best to be a “good Jedi” when he was around Obi-Wan, but his best wasn’t always enough, especially when the anger and fear were so close to the surface that his skin felt too tight.

“This sounds like a suicide mission,” Anakin said, his patience growing thin. “And you said the planet’s abandoned, so why are we even bothering?”

Obi-Wan pressed his lips tightly together, which he always did when he was interrupted. “Because this is the mission we were given, and we don’t have a say in where we are sent.”

“Well, I say it’s a waste of time and will needlessly endanger the lives of our men.”

“It doesn’t matter what you or I think,” Obi-Wan said, using that tone of voice that always made Anakin feel like he was a child. “We have to do as we’re told. This is the best plan of attack, so unless Captain Rex or Commander Cody have any issues with it, this is what we’re going with.”

Rex and Cody looked at each other. “We have nothing to add, sir,” Rex said.

“Then it’s settled.”

“This is total bantha fodder!” Anakin shouted as he threw his hands in the air.

Obi-Wan’s eyes snapped to his, and for a moment, Anakin thought Obi-Wan would finally lose his cool. He hadn’t seen actual anger from Obi-Wan in many years, the last time having to do with someone insulting Qui-Gon. Anakin was disappointed yet again, though, because Obi-Wan only told Rex and Cody they were dismissed as he shut off the holographic map. When Anakin was about to follow them, Obi-Wan stopped him.

“I said they were dismissed, not you.”

Once they were alone in the room, Anakin openly glared at him. “You’re not my Master anymore, Obi-Wan, and we’re both generals, so you can’t order me around.”

Sighing, Obi-Wan clasped his hands behind his back. “Well, if you stopped being such a slave to your emotions, I wouldn’t feel the need to give you orders.”

It was like a punch to the gut. Looking away, Anakin couldn’t even hold onto his anger. The comment had sucked the last bit of energy he had left right out of him. Obi-Wan had made insensitive remarks before, but that one stung more than the others. Then he felt the slightest hint of panic in the Force.

“I didn’t mean to say it that way.”

He looked at Obi-Wan and tried to discern if the panic was imagined, but it was so hard to tell what Obi-Wan was really feeling, which had always been a great source of frustration for Anakin. “Then apologize,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Obi-Wan’s very rare usage of the phrase “I’m sorry” had been bothering him for years. He couldn’t understand why it was so difficult for Obi-Wan to admit fault, especially when he’d done something that so obviously hurt Anakin. He’d thought the two of them were friends, but as the war dragged on, he’d become less and less sure of that. The criticism was sometimes unbearable, and whenever Anakin snapped at Obi-Wan in return, his old master would just shake his head in disappointment. When Anakin tried to convey that he didn’t appreciate Obi-Wan talking down to him, it was like he’d suddenly turned into a Padawan in Obi-Wan’s eyes.

“Let’s just move past this,” Obi-Wan said as he waved his hand dismissively.

That ignited a small fire within Anakin. He was so tired of being told his feelings didn’t matter, that the sharp words so casually flung at him should simply be ignored. “No, you need to apologize.”

Obi-Wan sighed as if Anakin was throwing a temper tantrum, as if calling him a slave didn’t warrant an apology. “Anakin, you’re making too much of this. We’re both tired, so I suggest we—”

“Why can’t you say you’re sorry?” he shouted, just on the edge of hysterical.

“Control yourself,” Obi-Wan said firmly. “We have a mission to complete, and we only have four standard hours before we make landfall, so get some rest.”

And the fire was doused. If Obi-Wan ever did care about him, he certainly didn’t now. Their duties as Jedi were more important than anything else. Anakin looked down at the floor, wishing he could make himself smaller. “Yes, Master,” he said quietly and walked out of the room.

Anakin didn’t get even a minute of sleep. All he did was stare at the ceiling and try to purge his emotions until he felt nothing, but that never worked. He desperately wanted Padmé to be there with him. She would say that he was right in wanting an apology from Obi-Wan, and she would hold him until his world felt as close to stable as it could get. Thinking about her was only emphasizing how little Obi-Wan valued him as a person. As General Skywalker, he had worth because fighting was something he excelled at. But what good was he as Anakin?

Tears were starting to build up in the corners of his eyes, but he didn’t want to acknowledge them by wiping them away with his sleeve. He just had to get through this battle, and then he’d request a different partner when they returned to Coruscant. Going their separate ways wouldn’t hurt as much as continuing to stay together would, but Anakin was always terrible when it came to letting go. Time hadn’t numbed him to loss when it came to Ahsoka or even his mother, so he had no hope of ever being free of such pain.

\------

The mission was a disaster. They were greatly outnumbered and outgunned, and Obi-Wan was just so _tired_. The war had been going on for years with no end in sight, and he didn’t know how much more he could take before he’d simply collapse. Anakin was right. This mission was a waste of their time, especially when they were supposed to be having a much needed break. He hadn’t questioned the other Council members when they said he and Anakin were to go back into the fray, but now he realized he should have, their disappointment in him be damned.

Anakin had been acting strangely distant ever since they left the _Resolute_. The way he’d just shut down in the meeting room before going off to his quarters hadn’t sit right with Obi-Wan, but he wasn’t sure how to approach him about it. Anakin’s current behavior might not even have anything to do with that anyway. When they both ended up behind a border wall to escape enemy fire, he found himself asking, “What’s wrong with you?” Obi-Wan inwardly cringed at how accusatory that had come out.

Something he couldn’t identify flashed in Anakin’s eyes, and Anakin took a moment to catch his breath before answering him. “Don’t worry. I understand now.”

“Understand what?” He had to shout to be heard as a bomb exploded nearby.

“That you merely tolerate me. So after this mission, I won’t bother you anymore.”

Obi-Wan had no clue where Anakin had gotten that idea from, but it was so far from the truth that he wanted to laugh. While Anakin did get on his nerves every now and then, Obi-Wan enjoyed having him by his side. He probably would have burned out already if it weren’t for Anakin. Meaning to give him a quick reassurance that he had it all wrong, Obi-Wan put a hand on Anakin’s shoulder and tried to ignore the way he flinched at the touch. “I don’t—”

But then an explosion went off close enough to send them flying. Even with using the Force to soften his landing, the impact rattled his bones and caused pain to flare up along his side. Obi-Wan couldn’t hold back a groan as he pushed himself off the jagged ground. His ears were ringing, and although he could tell he had at least one broken rib, he knew he had to get moving. Anakin was lying a few meters away, but he was completely still. Obi-Wan made his way over to him as quickly as he could and saw that he was only unconscious, not dead. He would know if Anakin was dead. His heart would shatter. When Obi-Wan rolled him onto his back, his eyes widened as his breathing stopped on an exhale. There was a large piece of debris sticking out of his abdomen.

“No . . . No, no, no.”

Obi-Wan tried to take a deep breath to calm himself, but that painfully reminded him of his broken rib. Instead, he opened himself up to Force and let it flow through him to clear his mind. He knew that Anakin would bleed out if he removed the debris, so all he could do was send out a distress call over his comlink, asking for an emergency medevac, before he turned on his homing beacon. “Please, just hold on,” Obi-Wan said as he held Anakin’s face in his hands. If he died, he would die thinking Obi-Wan couldn’t stand him. He didn’t know what he’d done to make Anakin think such a thing, but he’d take it back. He’d take it all back. “I’m sorry,” he whispered as he touched his forehead to Anakin’s. “I am so sorry.”

\------

Anakin woke up disoriented. The last thing he remembered was being on the battlefield, and they were losing so horribly that he wanted to call a retreat, but he couldn’t remember if he had.

Someone in Temple healer garb walked over to him. “Welcome back.”

Why was he in the Temple? Did they decide to count the battle as a loss and end up retreating? His mouth felt as dry as a the Dune Sea, so it took him a moment to ask at least one important question. “How long have I been out?”

“A week. You had severe internal injuries that required the work of four healers and a long soak in a bacta tank.” They turned away and came back with a glass of water, which Anakin grateful took from them. “It’s remarkable that you’re alive, but you always did have a knack for cheating death.”

After he gulped down the entire glass, he said, “I thought if someone was that injured, you just let them go. Because ‘attachments’ and all that.” Anakin was still a little out of it, so his brain-to-mouth filter was even less functional than usual.

The healer looked at him as if he’d said something rather disturbing. “If a person was beyond saving, then yes, we would have no choice but to let them go. However, with the war—”

Anakin held his hand up. “Yeah, we can’t afford to lose any more generals.” He didn’t doubt that as soon as he was cleared, the Council would throw him right back to the front lines. To work so hard to save him, at least they still thought he was useful.

“I will inform Master Kenobi that you’re awake.”

And there it was, that searing pain that made it hard to breathe.

“There’s no need to do that,” Anakin tried to say casually.

“But Master Kenobi asked to be told. Once you were out of the tank, he was at your bedside for two days straight until we threatened to give him a sedative if he didn’t get some rest.”

That didn’t make any sense. Not only was that a blatant display of attachment, Anakin knew Obi-Wan didn’t care about him, so why did he bother acting like he did when Anakin wasn’t even conscious?

The healer left before he could repeat himself that they didn’t need to contact Obi-Wan. That was when he remembered their last conversation. He’d told him that he understood, so why was Obi-Wan still pretending? Anakin had given him an out, and he wished Obi-Wan would just take it so that it would stop feeling like there was a vise around his heart.

When Obi-Wan showed up, Anakin wanted to tell him to leave, but the look of pure relief on his face made him pause. Hope was so cruel sometimes, and Anakin tried to crush it before it took hold of him.

Obi-Wan sat in the chair next to his bed and moved as if to touch Anakin, but he stopped and brought his hand into his lap instead. “How do you feel?”

“A little groggy,” Anakin said with a shrug.

Obi-Wan looked around discretely before he leaned in. “I’ve been keeping Padmé up-to-date.”

He panicked, but he tried to cover it up by saying, “You didn’t have to do that. I’m sure the Senator is busy and has enough things to worry about.”

Obi-Wan sighed. “I know about you two, but we can discuss that later.”

Anakin definitely wasn’t expecting that. His brain couldn’t even process the fact that Obi-Wan knew about him and Padmé, yet he hadn’t said anything to the Council. “Why are you even here?” Anakin blurted out. “You had the perfect opportunity to get rid of me. You could have asked the Council to be paired up with someone else while I was healing, and that’d be the end of it.”

Obi-Wan’s face twisted as if he was in pain before he looked away, his shoulders slumped. “I . . . I don’t know what I’ve done to make you think that I don’t care about you, but the truth is that I care _too much_.”

Anakin couldn’t have heard that right.

“I’m not very good at healing, so we nearly lost you twice. We stopped at a medical facility on the way here, but all they could do was put you into some kind of stasis. I knew your best chance was at the Temple.” Obi-Wan stopped and took a deep breath, wincing slightly as he did so. He didn’t say anything right away, but Anakin sensed there was more and tried to wait patiently for him to continue. “The thought of going on without you at my side . . . It frightened me.” He sounded so broken that Anakin stared at him in shock, unsure of how to respond. Obi-Wan almost seemed like he was close to tears, but that was simply impossible. “And it scared me just as much to think that you would have died believing I don’t give a damn about you.”

Then Obi-Wan finally looked at him, and Anakin was taken aback by the depth of emotion in his eyes. It was like the wall around Obi-Wan’s soul had been knocked down by the trauma of almost losing Anakin, and now Anakin could finally see into it. Their old training bond even flickered to life. While Obi-Wan couldn’t let his shields down completely because everyone in the vicinity would be drawn to him, Anakin could take a guess as to what he was feeling.

Without hesitation, Obi-Wan rested his hand on Anakin’s arm. “You are my dear friend and my brother, and I’m sorry that I’ve hurt you.”

Anakin tried to swallow around the lump in his throat. “Am I hallucinating?” he asked shakily.

“I can assure you that this is very real,” Obi-Wan said as he gave Anakin’s arm a squeeze.

He wanted to ask why it took him almost dying for Obi-Wan to open up, but it didn’t feel like the right time for that. Instead, he covered Obi-Wan’s hand with his own. “I think . . . I think we need to talk.”

“I agree. I don’t want to continue making the same mistakes, so I need to understand what those mistakes were.”

“And Padmé?”

Obi-Wan smiled a bit. “I’ve known for years. I just wanted you to be happy.”

Anakin couldn’t stop the single tear that escaped down his cheek. He was never so glad about being wrong. It would take a long time to heal the damage that’d been done, but as long as Obi-Wan was willing to be honest with him, and was willing to actually _listen_ , maybe everything would be alright.


End file.
